1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, an apparatus, and the like for image processing.
2. Description of the Related Art
In many cases, software for capturing an image from a scanner and inputting the image to a computer has an image processing function to correct an inclination of the image. In the case where a scanner provided with an automatic document feeder (ADF) is used to continuously scan a document containing a plurality of pages, images whose number corresponds to the number of pages of the document are input to the computer in the form of one file. The software serves to determine an inclination of an image for each page and correct the image of each page when the file is input to the computer, or in response to a subsequent command entered by a user.
The result of automatic inclination correction is not always satisfactory to the user. It is possible that, for example, correction is erroneously made, insufficient correction is made, or excessive correction is made on an image of a page for which inclination correction is unnecessary, because, for example, the image pattern of the page has a diagonal contour. To cope with this, software for correcting an inclination is configured to display an image that has been subjected to inclination correction on a display.
In general, images that have been subjected to inclination correction are sequentially displayed page by page. The top page is displayed first. When a user performs a predetermined operation, display on the screen is changed from one page image to another. The user can look at an image of one page displayed, and check whether or not an inclination correction process has been performed appropriately on the image.
If the user determines that inclination correction this time has not been performed appropriately on an image of a page, then inclination correction is performed once again thereon. In performing inclination correction once again, an inclination angle of the image is determined based on, for example, a document element specified by the user. Such a document element is a character string, a ruled line, a picture, a photograph, or the like. There is disclosed an image processing apparatus for displaying, around a document element, a value indicating the reliability of calculation of an inclination angle of the document element. Such a value is displayed for the convenience of the user specifying a document element (Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-149114).
As for display of images of a plurality of pages, a technique is known in which the background portions of the individual pages are made transparent, and the pages are displayed one above another. For example, there is disclosed an image forming apparatus having a finishing function to staple printed documents together or to punch a hole therein (U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2007/0139707 and 2007/0070470). The image forming apparatus has an operational panel on which preview for finishing is made by using the technique described above. A user of the image forming apparatus looks at the preview thus made; thereby, for example, he/she can check whether or not a plurality of pages contain a page that does not have a margin necessary to staple documents together.
Unfortunately, the conventional methods for displaying the result of image processing on images of a plurality of images have the following disadvantages.
According to the display method in which images that have been subjected to an inclination correction process or another image processing are sequentially displayed page by page, it is necessary for an operator to view all the pages to check whether or not there is a page on which the inclination correction process or another image processing has not been performed appropriately. For this reason, the greater the number of pages of a document is, the heavier load on an operator is. If images of a plurality of pages or all the pages are displayed at one time, a task of changing a display to another display is reduced. In such a case, however, the size of images of the individual pages to be displayed is small, which makes it difficult for an operator to check whether or not there is a page on which the inclination correction process or another image processing has not been performed appropriately.
According to the display method in which the background portions of a plurality of pages are made transparent and the pages are displayed one above another, even if there is a page on which image processing has not been performed appropriately, it is impossible for an operator to easily specify the page number of such a page. Further, as the number of pages is greater, the details to be displayed become more complicated, so that it is difficult to identify the individual pages.